Public Has Much to Say at City Workshop

by SC Reporter Emilie Alfino

Realtor Eric Pfeifer started off the first public comment period at Tuesday’s joint workshop with City Council and the Planning Commission. With a very long agenda for a meeting that started at 1 p.m., City officials decided to hear from citizens at the start of the meeting.

Pfeifer spoke as a 24-year resident and 24-year realtor as well as the Chair of the Economic Revitalization Committee for the Charitable Foundation of the Islands. He also served on the Planning Commission for five years.

“I feel this island is at a crossroads, and the island economy is at a crossroads,” Pfeifer began. “We keep hearing John Lai at the Chamber say 38 percent of accommodations pre-Ian currently are available to rent. That’s a low number, and that’s not 100 occupied for February or for March. Once we get to April 20, which is Easter, that’s the end of our season.”

When, Pfeifer asked, “does that 38 percent get higher?” He’s told it will reach 65 percent by the end of this year. When does it reach 80? 100? Lai told him 65 is as high as it’s going to go. “This is because we’re missing properties: Mitchell’s, Island Inn, West Wind Inn, Seaside Inn, Gulf Beach, and numerous others,” Pfeifer explained. “We can never get back to 100 until those properties are built back. Can the island businesses survive with 65 percent?” Go down Periwinkle and see we lost Sweet Melissa’s, he said; the Island Cow was just listed for sale. “Collectively, this should represent a concern to you,” he told the city officials. He continued: Tipsy Turtle foreclosed, the Fish House is not open, Trader’s is for sale, Dairy Queen is trying to get through permitting – businesses are deciding not to open because of that 65 percent projection. “I think that should be a big concern to you,” he told Council and the Commission.

Also, supply-and-demand is getting way out of control, Pfeifer explained: 275 houses are currently listed for sale, compared to 163 sold in all of 2024. Inventory will hit 300 houses by the end of February, he said. In addition, 161 condos are listed for sale, while 75 sold in 2024. “The last time we saw these absorption rates was 2009, and that was not a one-year fix. It took three to four years for prices to get buyers to jump back in.”

Pfeifer said, “ I would love to see you guys look at the big picture. Some things are out of our control – we had a natural disaster, and it will take years and years to heal, maybe it will take five years, and Helen and Milton pushed it back a few more. Insurance is another problem.”

There are some things we have some control over,” Pfeifer continued. “How can we get to a ‘yes’ with all these people trying to rebuild their businesses? The businesses don’t want to sign leases until the tourists are back, and the tourists don’t want to come back until the businesses are open. So we are at a crossroads here. Focus on the big picture and help everybody get back.”

Pfeifer stressed that Sanibel is not South Seas, which wants to add additional floors and additional density to make additional profit, he said – nobody, nobody here wants that, he stressed. Short of that, how can we get to a ‘yes’ within the approval process for residents and businesses? The minutia is important at a regular Planning Commission meeting, but he urged the City officials not to focus on that now. “We as a community are standing in our own way right now in preventing this build back from happening more quickly. It’s time to lead, follow, or get out of the way. I challenge one of you to become that leader and lead us through this build back.”

Peter Pappas, a resident and former member of City Council, was blunt. “Our recovery is not going well. We have been working detail-up instead of concept-down.” Pappas said Ft. Myers Beach, as of two weeks ago, was 50 percent reconstructed. “And that reconstruction is for the future,” he said. “We sit at 20 percent. We have not permitted development of properties below 11 feet above mean sea level for almost half a century. We are rebuilding at six, seven, eight feet above mean sea level. That is unacceptable risk given the conditions of the Gulf, hurricanes, numbers of hurricanes. We’ve got some empty properties on the Gulf of Mexico that are zoned commercial, they’re bare. They’re not building back because on each one of those properties, it is impossible to build a resilient structure because of our codes.”

“The businesses we have in operation today have to depend almost wholly on the day tourist,” Pappas continued. “Fifty-five years ago, we worked to assure Sanibel moved forward as principally a residential community and did not become another tourist attraction. We will become how we recover. We cannot be dealing with script but with concept.”

Long-time resident and business owner, former Sanibel Mayor Marty Harrity said, “This is like a never-ending battle. Two words come to mind: Recovery, a function of what happened, and Resilience. To enable those things to happen – and this may be sacrilege – but it’s time to start looking at the Land Development Code. Maybe it’s time for ‘Land Development Code Part 2,’ where we look at specific areas. Height, density, coverage are sacrosanct on this island. Nobody’s looking to change that. Nobody, nobody, nobody wants high-rise buildings on this island. But there are things we need to look at – recovery, resilience and the ability to work together.”

Harrity said there’s a lot of fear on the island: Fear of going to the city because you can’t get permits or that it will take forever. “I don’t know where the bottleneck is, but there is a bottleneck. I think as the servants of the citizens of Sanibel, I have to ask ‘what do you need of me’? We need to say ‘what can I do to help you, how can I get you back to where you want to be, to accomplish your goal’? Not ‘no you can’t.’ There is so much fear about coming to our city and that breaks my heart. Something’s wrong here, wires are crossed. We have to look at this objectively and openly to resolve the problems that we have.”

“Our island is in a crisis,” Harrity continued. “It’s going to disappear as we know it. People are not going to come back. Typically the residents come, then the businesses follow. There are things we have to do with our Land Development Code that nobody would look at before. There are things that we have to change.”

Chauncey Goss, son of Sanibel’s first mayor who was one of the founders of the City, urged the group to keep the discussion high-level and not “in the weeds.” “Look at the big picture, the reason we’re all here is recovery. What do we need to recover? I thought we’d be further along in 2-1/2 years and I’m sort of bothered that we’re not. Milton and Helene didn’t help any. Part of the problem is we have that pre-Ian mindset when it comes to the Sanibel Plan. And the Sanibel Plan is literally in my blood, so when I say that it can be amended, it’s time now to look at it, does all the stuff we’re doing make sense. Our primary goal has to be recovery. And in every single action, the first thing to be considered is whether it will help recovery. [City staff should say] before I give you an answer, is it going to help recovery or not? Just keep beating at it, otherwise we’re just going to get stuck in the weeds. Just stay up here and focus on recovery.”

More SC coverage from the joint Sanibel City Council and Planning Commission workshop on Feb. 18: 
• Sanibel Council, Plan Commission Hold Joint Workshop
• Dealing With Distressed and Dangerous Properties
• Developed Areas, Fill Question Going To Planning Commission